Fairknowe Home

 Brockville

The Fairknowe Home was called the "Distributing Home For Scotch (sic) Children and Canadian Orphan Home" and that was essentially the function it provided; the transporting of scottish orphan or indigent children to Canada. Once the children had arrived at the home (located on present Fairknowe Drive) the administration of the institution provided for their placement in Canadian homes.

The director of the Home at the beginning of our period, Mr. William Quarrier, made this statement in regard to the children's backgrounds to the Evening Recorder in March of 1890:

....... they are not the "scum of the old country slums" but mostly the children of respectable, though poor men who have died leaving no provision for their families. (21)

These children were brought to Canada in groups varying in size from one hundred to two hundred. They were not homeless for long upon arriving in Brockville as the following statement by Mr. Quarrier illustrates:

....... It will interest your readers to know that about ninety of the one hundred and twenty-nine boys who came here a week ago have been placed out, and it will be useless to apply for any over 10 years of age. (22)

The older age of the boys who were "placed out" most quickly reveals the prime motivation for the existence of the Home in the first place; the children were taken in primarily by farmers who wanted cheap or free labour. Letter from A. J. Trail (who was Director of the Brockville Children's Aid Society) written in 1913 concerning foster children show that it was fully realized by the authorities that the children were to be used as labour by the foster parents for no wages or very meagre wages. (23) This is not to say that the children were ill- treated necessarily, although there were cases. An interview conducted with a local gentleman who was placed in Canada through the Fairknowe Home stated that in his estimation about "seventy percent of the farms took good care of the orphans." Another interview held with a former Fairknowe orphan told a different story. The orphan was, in this case, a female, and she related that she was sent to two farms at the age of ten where she did both farm and housework without wages or even proper clothing. She stated that she was to have received money, but did not dare mention the manner in which she was treated when inspectors visited because they would have taken her back to the Fairknowe Home. In this particular case the woman's older brother who had emigrated earlier took her away from her family to a new area, where she was adopted at the age of fifteen.

The number of boys and girls brought to the Fairknowe Home varied each year, but each group transported was almost always exclusively of one sex. In 1900 Mr. Alex Burgess (the new director of the Fairknowe House) wrote to the former Home administrator, Mr. William Quarrier, and discussed the position of the Fairknowe children in their new country:

Some are working hard to get an education, and will figure among the men of the future. Nor are the girls less ambitious. .. People when applying (for a foster child) write that they prefer our children on account of their thorough training, and because they are more likely to remain with them than those that have relations, or other attractions to draw them away. (24)

It is an undisputed fact that many of the children or young adults who came to Canada as Fairknowe orphans did well in the new country. It is also evident that these children were brought here to work, and as it turned out, many worked very hard in bad (and in some cases even cruel) conditions. No generalization can be drawn about the type of treatment received in Canadian homes. It appears to have been a matter of luck. From 1890 to 1930 four thousand, four hundred and eighteen (4,418) children emigrated to Canada through the Fairknowe Home.

References:

Brockville A Social History 1890-1930

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